According to Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Director of the Institute for Tourism Development Research under the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, the world’s tourism sector has continued to grow strongly and greatly affected the global socio-economic development.
Tourism has become one of the main pillars of international trade, and an important income source for many developing countries, he said.
Tuan said changing tourism types require managers and investors to have analysis and proper measures, thus appropriately operating the national tourism industry.
According to the World Tourism Organization, Vietnam is one of the ten countries having the fastest tourism growth in the world.
Vietnam’s tourism development strategy to 2030 with a vision through 2050, Vietnam is expected to welcome 32 million foreign visitors by 2025, and about 47 million in 2030, with an annual average growth of between 9-11 percent in the period, contributing about 14 percent to the national GDP.
Delegates said that Vietnam's tourism industry needs to develop a number of modern tourism types and products to meet the demand of tourists by fully tapping advantages of each region.
Environmentally friendly tourism types such as eco-tourism, community-based tourism, medical tourism and beauty care are more and more popular at present, attracting interest of holidaymakers.
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Dinh, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Vietnam Tourism Association, underlined the need to improve the quality of human resources serving the tourism industry, saying that this is very necessary to promote the application of science and technology into developing smart tourism - one of the new trends of tourism development in the world.
Vietnam’s tourism sector has set a target of welcoming 18 million foreign visitors and serving 85 million local visitors this year.
